Icelanders Should Be Angry For Wasting Their Time

The Icelandic Government knew where the minds of the Icelandic voters were, going into the vote. Even before that, they knew the general concerns of the electorate, and what they would and wouldn't tolerate. The Prime Minister, Kristrún Frostadóttir, had been very clear in the run-up to the referendum that there were red lines that Iceland would not cross if negotiations did take place, and that they would collapse the negotiations with the EU if they were forced to consider crossing them. Those red lines were very simple - they wanted to retain complete control over Fisheries and Agriculture.

These red lines were of course a complete non-starter for the EU. The term negotiation is used to describe the accession process, but the term is misunderstood by many and intentionally misrepresented by others. There is no negotiation on the terms of EU accession, and hasn't been for decades. Those countries who joined before the formation of the EU, back when it was called the EEC, were able to set some terms and agree some opt-outs. Those went the way of the dodo once the EU was formed. What is described as a negotiation, is the phased demonstration by the applicant country of the ways in which it believes it meets the treaty obligations, and the EU deciding whether or not they are sufficient. The treaty does not change, nor the obligations.

So the Icelandic Government knew that the electorate had red lines that they would not cross, to such an extent that they voiced clearly in the run-up that they existed and that they would abide by them. The EU also knew that these red lines existed, and at any time could have stated as part of the debate that the red lines would have to be crossed in order to accede. But of course this didn't happen.

So why should the Icelanders be angry? Well both their Government and the EU wasted their time. If either of them had just been honest about the terms of accession and that they were not acceptable, then the whole thing could have been called off, and quite literally hundreds of millions of Krona in taxpayer money could have been saved (the Icelandic Government estimated the cost of running the referendum at 500-600 million Krona).

As with all countries, Governments should have enough to be getting on with, without wasting their time and the time of the electorate on national votes they know are pointless.

• Read the results of the Iceland Referendum on the national broadcaster website